


Stay

by SuperVi



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M, Getting Together, Introspection, Pining, Post-Lethal White
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 11:58:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18010511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperVi/pseuds/SuperVi
Summary: It's late and Robin has to go home. Or does she?





	Stay

They meet on the staircase, at a quarter past five - she’s coming down from the office, he’s coming up from the street. They haven’t seen each other in person since the day before yesterday, and a single butterfly takes off in Robin’s chest.

Whether Strike experiences a similar entomological sensation she cannot tell, but a corner of his mouth does turn up in a half-smile at the sight of her.

“You in a rush?” he asks. “Can you spare a moment? Half an hour maybe?” He points to a cardboard file folder tucked under his arm. “Greedy George. I think you’ll find this interesting.”

“Will I now?” She raises her eyebrows. Her answer is an instant yes. Many months after her divorce, the conditioned reflex to hesitate, check and inform is all but unlearned.

So she leads the way up the stairs to the office and he follows.

“Christ, it’s cold out there,” he grumbles, rubbing his hands. He’s not wearing a jacket, just a shirt. After an unseasonably hot week, this September day has surprised London with bone-chilling wind and a sharp mid-day drop in temperature - or at least it has surprised those of its residents who didn’t have time to bother with the weather forecast.

Robin (who counts herself among this unlucky group), fishes in her bag for the keys. Most of her mind is on the intriguing contents of Strike’s folder; the remaining bit is on the kettle and the tea caddy.

*

Strike’s half an hour triples into an hour and a half as they pore over his newest haul. It is only when Robin’s phone lights up with a text from her mother and she types a quick reply, preventively avoiding a mention of her whereabouts so as not to set Linda’s motherly instincts tingling, that Strikes seems to remember to glance at his watch.

“Well, that was a pretty long half an hour. Sorry.” He grimaces, but Robin waves it away. Apparently determined not to keep her any longer, he clears away their mugs and an empty biscuit packet, so Robin goes along with it, unhurriedly putting away the documents and pictures they’ve been studying.

She doesn’t know if he’s been planning to confront her all along or if it only occurred to him when they found themselves on the staircase again, but when he’s locked the agency’s door, he turns towards her and says:

“Is that all you’re wearing?” He makes a rather vague motion with his hand towards - she assumes - her light, short-sleeved dress.

“An unfortunate miscalculation,” she answers with a helpless smile. “The morning was more than promising. Which I’m sure you’re aware of.” She looks pointedly at his shirt, challenging the pot to call the kettle under-dressed.

“You’ll freeze.” He scowls, but that particular brand of scowl stopped making an impression on her a long time ago. After a short consideration, he adds: “Take something of mine.”

For a wild moment, Robin has a startlingly clear vision of Strike unbuttoning his blue shirt and handing it over to her. She is not quite sure if it is the thought of him taking the garment off to reveal his chest and arms, or of herself putting on the shirt, still warm from his body, that she finds more appealing.

Regrettably, she doubts he’s offering either.

“Please. I’m from Yorkshire. I’m made of sterner stuff than that.”

“Yeah? So what’s the Yorkshire cure for the common cold?”

“Lemsip and Otrivine?”

“The old wives’ remedy.” He pauses. “Right. So are you coming upstairs for something to wear or not?”

He has no idea how silly this question is.

*

He disappears into his bedroom, but Robin doesn’t follow. She might have learned to accept her incurable Strike-centered curiosity; he might have let the strictly guarded sphere of privacy shrink ever so slightly. But the fundamental rules surely still apply.

So, as she waits for him to come back, she just glances surreptitiously around the flat. He’s single, she knows, so her examination is luxuriously carefree. Her gaze falls on the blanket on the sofa, folded neatly into a square; on an ashtray drying by the sink in the kitchenette; on a book laid aside on the tiny dining table, its pages divided with a bookmark, or maybe just an old train ticket. A hazy image of an evening in forms in her mind.

Her sleuthing is interrupted by Strike, who emerges into the living room carrying a thick zip-up jumper. Holding it at an awkward angle, he unzips it and offers it to her.

The jumper is too big, too wide, the sleeves hang far too low - not that it comes as a surprise. Strike touches one sleeve in a clumsy attempt to roll it up. “Here.” His hand brushes the inside of her wrist and her fingers curl reflexively. He stills for a second, and so does Robin - but then, he presses on with his task. Once it’s done, however, he steps back and stuffs his hands in the pockets of his jeans, letting the other sleeve hang.

Robin is self-aware enough now and honest enough with herself to know that this little moment will be yet another item added to the collection she keeps. Memories of actions and inactions, words and silences, to be taken out late at night and looked at from every possible angle, examined and reexamined for clues and hints, for signs of affection that is more than friendly.

Perhaps, then, it is in the name of research that she rides out this moment and lets the awkward silence burn in the space between them as she rolls up the other sleeve by herself and zips up the jumper.

She looks up at him then and schools her voice into a teasing tone.

“Better now? Will you be able to sleep at night?”

He gives her a measured look.

“My conscience is clear now, yes.”

She smiles. Stands there, unmoving, as another silence stretches. He doesn’t say anything else, so in the end she clears her throat and tries to remember the formula.

“Well. Now it’s really time for me to go home.”

Yes, that’s it.

*

Despite Robin’s earlier bravado, it really is terribly cold outside. Luckily, Strike’s jumper is soft and warm, and she buries her nose in its high neck. It smells vaguely of him - just a whiff of Benson & Hedges, and some detergent that she might well be fooling herself that she recognizes. She doesn’t really think he has one specific kind he uses - probably just grabs whatever looks serviceable enough.

In the near twilight, the edge of the pavement is dotted with rubbish bags waiting to be collected, that familiar dividing line between afternoon and evening. Home should be beckoning to her with its creature comforts - the cozy bedroom, the well-stocked fridge, the undemanding yet entertaining companionship of her roommate. It should but it isn’t.

Her mind is somewhere else: back in the little flat over the agency, beside its surly occupant. She wonders if he’s going to read that book tonight, or maybe just watch TV instead. Is he already on his second cigarette, making up for the time spent with her in the office?

She walks past a young couple, twenty at most. They stand pressed against a shop window to stay away from the stream of passers-by and clearly find it hard to keep their hands off each other. The divorced-before-thirty part of Robin, which is as cynical as any part of her is ever going to get, does not envy the naivety and the almost inevitable heartbreak of young love. But the girl looks adorably flustered, her hands on the guy’s shoulders, and he runs his fingers through her hair, his eyes for her only. It’s a lovely picture - you’d need a heart of stone to deny it, and Robin is not lucky enough to be in possession of one.

And she remembers that day, not long after her divorce came through, when she and Strike were walking through Green Park after meeting a client and he told her she had something - a piece of a dead leaf maybe - stuck in her hair. She combed her fingers through it but found nothing, so he reached out to help her, his fingers brushing against her neck accidentally. Right then and there, under the watchful eyes of an impudent royal squirrel, she felt skin tighten on her entire body and for the first time in Strike’s presence, the sweet heaviness of arousal overcame her.

She was glad it was late enough that they weren’t going back to the office together. Her mind buzzed as she boarded the westbound Piccadilly train alone, headed for home. Trying to put a name to the feelings whirling inside her, she eventually settled on relief - because she felt as if she’d finally found the last missing piece in a puzzle, and on fear - because what was she going to do about it now?

In the end, she did nothing. Oh, she watched him like a hawk (albeit a determinedly discreet one), trying to solve his side of the equation. Once, she stooped so low as to google “signs a man finds you attractive” but closed the browser before it spewed out the results of her search. Signs that you’re losing your dignity, more like, she told herself sternly.

But really, she did nothing.

I should just break down and cry in front of him, Robin thinks wryly as she enters the Tube station. As much as she hates to show him any signs of weakness, the truth is that when she does, it always, always pushes their relationship forward. Deciding to employ her or to train her properly, dealing with the most personal of her issues as he listened to her confessions of traumas and relationship failures - all of this accompanied by her tears, all of it things that he was willing to do even though she always feared otherwise.

She stops in her tracks. It happens, as luck would have it, just when she is passing the turnstile.

“Hey,” someone behind her grumbles. She looks around unseeingly and apologizes, moving forward before she can cause any more upset to the barely balanced flow of London’s passengers.

But she doesn’t go far. Every step is taking her further away from Denmark Street, from the answers she wants, from the man who always, as they moved from strangers to colleagues to friends, turned out to want and be ready for more than he let on.

She starts towards the exit turnstiles.

She leaves the station and walks faster and faster and faster, she passes the young lovers, and then she runs.

*

She’s already on the second floor, almost past the office door, when she realizes that she’s simply let herself in, like she does every day when she comes to work. Should she have buzzed his flat? She didn’t even think about it. There’s simply no precedent - this is, bizarrely, the very first time she’s come here with the sole and express purpose of seeing him privately, in his own home.

Breathing heavily from exertion, she reaches the top floor and stops before his door. She closes her eyes briefly in this moment that separates the before and the after.

She knocks and is met with silence. Could he be asleep already? She wouldn’t put it past him. But no matter. She’ll knock, rap and bang on the door until he answers.

But she hears him before she has to resort to more noise-making. He opens the door, frowning. The top two buttons of his shirt are unbuttoned, revealing his dark chest hair. How fortunate, she thinks inanely, that the weather’s been so warm until now - it means her legs are shaved.

“Robin. What happened? Is something wrong?” he asks. He looks her up and down, scanning for God knows what, maybe wardrobe malfunctions, maybe imagined injuries. Most likely the latter if the sudden alertness in his face, the flash of the old soldier in him, is anything to go by.

Her heart is hammering so hard she can feel its pulsating beat in her throat, in her ears. Surely he must hear it too. But he seems oblivious.

She shakes her head vehemently.

“It’s fine. I’m fine.” She takes a step forward. “I was just…. I was already at the station and about to go home, but…” She looks into his confused eyes. “You see, the problem is that I don’t want to.”

She puts her hand on his chest, just where his shirt opens, feels both the softness of the fabric and the scratchiness of his hair. In an echo of her earlier reflex, her fingers curl and take hold of the shirt.

Without a word, he looks down, then back up into her eyes. A thrill shoots right through her as she watches his face change, his pupils dilate in dawning realization. And even though he doesn’t ask a single question, she still answers with an affirmative nod.

And before he pulls her inside and into his arms, before his lips touch hers, before everything happens and she does, after all, end up wearing his shirt just because she can, there’s just enough time for her to whisper:

“I really, really don’t want to go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Because I really loved that one line in "Lethal White" when an unhappy Robin thinks "I don't want to go home"...


End file.
